Postcards For A Rainy Day
by Blaizekit
Summary: Collection of drabbles of different lengths, centered around Nagato and the Ame Orphans in their youth. Loosely connected, posted in chronological order.
1. Mother

**A/N: I probably shouldn't overexplain myself here, but this is a collection of short scenes that may become part of a full-length fic at some point. Some of them will be AU (and those would not be included). These come from my RP blog, and have been modified into drabble format where necessary. Again, these scenes might be re-used or re-imagined later on for a full story. But I am posting them now because that will be after the TWTBW sequel, if ever, so it will be a very long time.**

 **There will be 11 to 13 drabbles total, loosely grouped in chronological order from child age to adult. They are already written, so check my profile for posting dates.**

* * *

 **Mother**

* * *

"Nagato?" Fusō called, looking around in her son's room. "Mou… he's so quiet, we should put a bell on him." She stepped out and continued calling down the hall.

Nagato peeked out from his closet door before climbing down to the floor. He didn't want to worry his mother, so he knew he had to show up soon. But his surprise for her wasn't ready yet! He hurriedly did the best he could folding the paper around the flowers with his clumsy, childish hands. Today was his mother's birthday, and he didn't have any money to buy her a present with. After thinking hard about it for days, he finally decided that he would give her a bouquet of irises. They were her favorite flower.

These had been hard to find. He'd had to walk through a lot of mud in the nearby woods to find them, probably going a great deal farther than he was allowed. Still, he was determined. Finally managing to wrap the paper around the small bouquet, Nagato ran out into the hall and toward the kitchen. He could hear his mother singing, now–a made-up song about what happens to little boys who don't come out when their mother calls them. (Fusō loved to sing and invent songs, but it was sometimes one of her scarier qualities.)

"Happy birthday, 'kaa-chan!" Nagato blurted out as he darted into the kitchen. He pulled the small bunch of flowers out from behind his back and presented them to her.

"What–?" she certainly looked surprised. The red-haired woman crouched down and patted him on the head. "So you were up to something, huh? Where did you get these, Naga-chan? They're very pretty."

"Um…" he started to blush. "They were in the middle of a lot of mud… b-but I left my shoes outside."

"Ah, so that explains that," Fusō said dryly. But she smiled and gathered the flowers into her hands. "Well! I suppose we should get these into some water, ne?"


	2. Father

**Father**

* * *

"Nagato, where are you going? We're about to have dinner," Ise said as Nagato opened the front door.

"I just saw the post lady go by, can I say hello?" Nagato asked, suddenly remembering he was supposed to ask before going outside.

It was a new rule. The war had gotten closer and more of the people in their small country village were leaving every day. Even they might have to move too, eventually–but his parents said they would stay as long as possible, in order to help treat the sick around here. They were all this small place had as far as medical care. They had a big responsibility.

"You can say hello, but come right back. Don't leave the yard. And take your coat."

"Okay, 'tou-chan!" Nagato smiled brightly back at him, the dark plum eyes he'd inherited from his mother scrunching at the corners. He grabbed his coat and headed out into the light drizzle.

The little village looked so desolate these days, the semi-spherical houses left dark when they usually would all be lit up this time of the evening. Darkness and silence were creeping into their neighborhood like a mysterious fog, taking away their friends and acquaintances one by one.

As much as it made Nagato sad, his father seemed the most sad of all of them. He had such a warm and compassionate heart. The more people left, the less happy and energetic he seemed to be, as if his spirit could only thrive in the bustle of talking and helping people every day. He spent more evenings at home now, which was fun. But Nagato still would have preferred having his happy 'tou-chan back.

Splashing to the edge of the yard, Nagato stopped and looked around. He didn't see the post lady anymore–he didn't see anyone. Even now, that was unusual. Besides, hadn't she been right in front of their house a moment ago? It was almost like she'd disappeared into thin air. He stood near the mailbox and stared hesitantly into the mist.

The lights shimmered, distorted by the light drops pattering all around. Nagato felt kind of sleepy, or maybe it was just the way everything looked. Confused, and just the teensiest bit worried, he looked back at his own house. The light was on in the kitchen, looking warm and inviting. He couldn't see his father's silhouette in the doorway anymore, but everything that way looked clear and not fuzzy. Reassured, Nagato turned and stepped–and bumped right into someone.

"S-Sorry!" he said in a barely audible voice. He slowly looked up at the person, and took a frightened step backward.

It was someone he had never seen before, an old man with long, unruly hair mostly turned gray. The lines etched into his face left shadows, but that wasn't the frightening part. It was his eyes. They almost seemed to glow in the low light, a vivid purple color with rings that made you feel like you were being hypnotized.

"Wh-who are you?"

The old man smiled.

In the dreams, he often said something after that. But the words never came out clearly.


	3. Uzushio

**A/N: This drabble is an alternate universe/canon from the others. This and one other later on ("The Salamander") are AU, but all the rest are from the same storyline.**

 **Thanks to rxdwhirlpool and their Kushina for letting me play out this universe a few times. :D**

* * *

 **Uzushio**

* * *

A very, very long time ago, they lived in a place where the sun shone every day. But those memories were blotted out, for the most part—just like the sun was blotted out behind wooly dark clouds in the Rain country.

All Nagato really knew about Whirlpool was that his family had originated there, and left abruptly one day. When he got older, he understood that it was because war had crept into their little pocket of paradise and blasted the sun away with its cold wind.

Different home, same story. No matter what, war followed their little family wherever they went, until it finally caught up and wrapped its hands around their throats.

The only very clear memory he had from the old village was the day the sun went dark. He woke up and everything was pitch-black. His body hurt all over and could barely move. It felt like he was dying.

His parents told him that he was very sick, and that he had to rest in bed for a while. They said that it was all dark because they had bandaged up his eyes.

Whispers drifted toward him from the crack under the door for a few weeks after that, but they were never clear enough to understand. Nagato spent most of the time drifting in and out of consciousness. It was alright, though, because he had a friend.

He liked to pretend that she was a sprite, or a fairy. Maybe that was why, when he looked back on it later, he thought he had completely made her up. She held his hand during the long days of darkness and spoke to him, sometimes singing the same songs his mother liked to sing.

After a while, he was strong enough to move around again, and became adept at moving around the house blindly. The sprite was there to help him then, too. Gradually he became accustomed to her voice and smell, and could tell when she was happy or sad or afraid.

The day came when she was very, very afraid. All of them were. Nagato could smell smoke and hear panicked voices in the street, panicked footsteps inside the house. He held the sprite close to him and stroked her soft hair, telling back to her the same stories she'd told him.

And then his mother was there. She took his arm and pulled him to his feet, away from the sprite. He wasn't afraid, because there had already been drills, and nothing bad had happened. He assumed this was the same. Kaa-chan pulled him away, and soon their little family was on the move.

They said things like, _'It won't be much longer until they launch a full-scale invasion'_ and _'This way, they won't find her'_. A lot of big terms were thrown around that he didn't understand.

The first time he entered the Land of Rain, he thought it was beautiful, even though he couldn't see it. The sound of rain and the soothing, rhythmic taps on his hair and skin made it feel like the country was embracing them.

Everyone was very quiet and sad for a while. Eventually, however, his parents got their energy back, and Nagato got his sight back. He always thought it was because of faulty memory and the dimmer surroundings, but neither one was exactly the same anymore.

And he never heard or felt the little sprite's presence ever again, until a day many years after he'd forgotten the sunny place.


	4. Goodbye

**Goodbye**

* * *

The days after _it_ happened, Nagato spent vague hours wandering through his family's small home like a pale ghost. He paused here and there, hands and feet cold and ears ringing with the drip from the faucet in the kitchen. It sounded deafening in the darkness and silence.

He was indecisive. The numbness that had settled into his heart and mind ever since burying the bodies kept him sane, but it also trapped him indefinitely inside this house full of spirits of the people he had killed.

The smallest sound out of the ordinary, a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye, would jolt him out of the blankness and scream memories in his face—

 _you killed them all, you killed them all!_

He had to get out.

To make matters worse, the food supply was starting to run low. Nagato had tried to explore some of the neighboring houses for food, but they were long abandoned. Everyone else had evacuated months before now. That was the entire reason those Konoha shinobi had been so glad to find their home in the first place.

They had been starving, too. And they probably had mothers and fathers just like his, and they were all dead, they were all dead.

The only options seemed to be to stay here and die with them, or leave and try to find someone that would be willing to give him a little food. After all, he was just one little kid who didn't eat that much. Surely _someone_ would be willing to help.

So that day, Nagato prepared to leave his family home forever. He turned to look back at the empty little village, the rain pattering on his hood. It was bad that he had waited so long to leave. He hadn't even started his journey and already he felt hungry and weak. But it was his stomach that compelled him to move on.

It wanted him to live, and that was a difficult force to argue against.

"Goodbye, 'tou-chan, kaa-chan," Nagato murmured.

He took the first step toward an unknown destination, hoping. For what, Nagato had no idea. That hope was exactly like the hunger. He had no idea where it came from, but it made him want to live. It pushed itself insistently into the front of his mind whenever the darkness tried to creep in.

And since there was no longer any shortage of darkness, there was always a lot of hope.


	5. Chibi

**Chibi**

* * *

The battlefields were dangerous, even if the fighting had already moved on. Nagato knew that, but this was an emergency. His new friend was missing. He had searched all day, calling until his throat turned hoarse, and this was the only place left to look.

Like the other battlefields he'd seen since leaving home, this one was deadly quiet and littered with shrapnel and craters. Nagato tripped once or twice in his haste to find his dog and leave this place, terrified that scavengers would be coming here soon to steal clothing and weapons.

He stopped and became very still when he suddenly heard a miserable-sounding wail. Running to the edge of a large hole, he saw the pup howling and crying, barely recognizable with all the mud caked on his fur.

"Chibi!" Nagato jumped down and and ran to him. Chibi's barked changed to something happier, and he jumped and tried to roll around on Nagato's coat.

"I'm sorry," he choked out in a sob, trying and failing to ebb the flow of his tears. He was just so relieved! Chibi had been missing for two days already, and Nagato had started to think he was going to be completely alone again. He thought that the pup was seriously hurt, or even that he'd run away because Nagato couldn't feed him. When he finally saw his dog deep in a hole, he realized what must have happened.

"Are you okay? Are you hurt?" Nagato backed up a bit to look at him. He couldn't see anything aside from the mud slathered on him, but there could be something else. "Were you stuck here a long time? I'm–I'm sorry, you must be hungry too, but I–I don't have anything." That somehow set him off again, and the red-haired boy hugged the dog, crying.

Chibi gave a low whine and licked his face, hopping a bit on three legs as he held up a paw. There was a small cut on the pad of it, but he otherwise seemed unhurt. He pressed up to Nagato, continuing to whimper in a low tone. It was like he was trying to hug his friend back.

They stayed like that for a little while until Nagato calmed down a bit, still shivering slightly as he held on to Chibi. He just had to hold on for a while, to let it sink in that the pup was really here and safe, and that he wasn't left all alone again.

Nagato felt a drip on the back of his head and raised his smudged face to the sky. The rain was going to start, and if they didn't get out now, the mud would make it even harder to try. Standing up, Nagato scooped Chibi into his arms and lifted him as high as he could, trying to push him far enough that he could climb out on his own. But after a moment of squirming and struggling, Chibi yelped and slid back down into Nagato's arms.

"Chibi, what's wrong? Can you not reach it? Oh no–" he stopped his own words short when he saw a smudge of red on his hand. It had come from Chibi's paw. Something must have made it worse—it was bleeding freely now. Nagato gently held the dog close to him and leaned back against the mud wall, sliding down to the ground, fighting the urge to cry more. That would not help.

Neither would the steady rain that was now falling down on them. It was only going to get harder to climb out of here if they waited any longer. Death was always terrifyingly close to them. In a situation like this, it was practically hovering overhead. Nagato could probably climb out on his own still, but he wasn't about to leave Chibi behind. What could he do?

He jumped slightly when Chibi suddenly barked, and he loosened his grip a bit. But that wasn't it. The little dog kept barking every other second, sounding morose and pitiful. Nagato listened for a while as the rain continued to come down harder, pooling around near his feet. Were they really going to die here, over something so simple? If only he hadn't brought them so close to the battlefields where the land was full of trenches and holes, this might not have happened.

Suddenly he stood up, hearing something. Was there someone nearby? Nagato gently put Chibi down on the ground. Did someone hear the barks? Maybe they were saved! Or maybe they could call for help!

Nagato heard a swift _fwip_ sound and saw a kunai stuck into the sopping ground several feet away. The paper tag tied to it was burning up rapidly. Even though it wasn't the first or even second time he'd seen one of these, Nagato couldn't help but stare blankly for the two seconds it took for the paper bomb to go off.

Something happened, then. He wasn't entirely sure what it was afterward. All he knew was that the destructive blast was coming at the two of them, and he stopped it–somehow.

The memory got very confused. Everything else around ended up destroyed, including the side of the hole closest to the blast. He ended up losing consciousness and falling straight down into the mud.

The person who threw it must not have bothered to check if anything down there was still alive, because Nagato woke up completely unharmed when he felt Chibi lick his face. They were scared, exhausted, and completely drenched with rain and caked with dirt. But the blast made it possible to escape. They wasted no time in leaving once Nagato saw the collapsed wall.


End file.
